I got out for my second insanely long run leading up to Brookings Marathon today. I did the bike trail loop in Sioux Falls again. It was 15 degrees when I stepped out this morning, so my body performed MUCH better than last time. I was able to cover the 19.45 mile distance in a measly 2 hours, 53 minutes and some odd seconds. I’m pretty happy with that based on how little I’ve trained so far. I took my Sansa Clip+ MP3 player with me this time, but I played no music. I listened to three podcasts.

So here’s my playlist for today

Marathon Training Academy – Angie and Trevor reviewed their experience at The Rock ‘n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon 2013. We can relate to Trevor an Angie quite well as they are raising a young family and are putting on a really good show and helping people to reach their marathon and half marathon goals. It doesn’t hurt that both Angie and my wife are nurses. The New Orleans RNR Marathon sounded like a lot of fun.

The Model Railcast Show – Episode 183 – The hosts talked about some best practices with wiring for DCC. Most of this I know, but there are always some tips to pick up here and there. And it never hurts to review stuff I already know about wiring for DCC. It befuddles me to learn of veteran model railroaders that still insist on skimping on wiring under their layouts, even when running DCC. I know at least one of them. 20 or 22 ga. bus wires are NOT heavy enough for DCC. Ugh.

Runner Academy with Matt Johnson – Episode RA019 – Matthew interviewed Dick Beardsley, who was in his time, a dominant marathon runner. Dick has a very inspirational story of starting out as a back of the packer in high school cross country. He tells the story of coming from that level of ability all the way to being a elite marathoner. Dick also tells the story of addiction to prescription drugs after a series of four separate accidents that nearly took his life.

All in all, it was a fabulous run. The weather was beautiful this morning (the sun went away by lunchtime), the company was great and I learned a thing or two from each podcast.